I started this blog in the first days of 2008, and these final days of 2009 seem to be a good place to close down shop.  I started a new job, in a new state, in late summer, and since then the time for the blogging and freelance writing has not crept back into my schedule.  I’ve worked hard to protect family time from the new job demands, and so far that’s gone well.  I don’t feel the need to put the same effort into protecting the blogging time.  I’m also going to let the website expire come mid-December.  I do hope the time for freelancing reappears, both because I enjoy it and it helps to pay the bills.  But family time, in these years while the kids are young, trumps all.

Thanks for stopping by.  It’s been a real pleasure. 

Oremus pro invicem.  Let us pray for one another.

This is really cool.  It’s new at the Vatican website.  Do explore at your leisure.

(And peruse this and this for some very helpful context and background.)

“Why have children?”

You mean Bon Dylan didn’t explode, telling the officer he didn’t know who he was messing with? Please tell me some on-the-ball commentator or writer is going to compare this to this.

Amy Welborn is wrapping up things at Beliefnet and heading back to her spot at Charlotte Was Both.  I’m just glad she’s still hanging out on the blogosphere, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing the fruits of whatever book-work is keeping her busy these days.

On the cause of Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, who was auxiliary bishop of Sacramento until his death at 60 in an auto accident, in 1991:

St. Alphonse of Sacramento?

Process to canonize beloved former auxiliary bishop moves forward

An effort to beatify and canonize former Sacramento Auxiliary Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, described in one biography as a “champion of the unborn and the unwanted,” continues to move forward.

The diocese is in the process of preparing a more than 1000-page report summarizing the testimony of over 100 witnesses attesting to Bishop Gallegos’ virtuous life and declarations from those who say the bishop has interceded on their behalf since his death almost 18 years ago. The report is scheduled to be sent to the Vatican at year’s end.

***

Sara Sevilla, 15, of Oxnard, told the Bee that she was nearly blind and said Bishop Gallegos’ intercession restored her vision a year ago. “My family and I prayed, asking for his help,” Sevilla told the Bee. “I got this warm feeling all over me and then I got my eyesight.”

Full article here.  Thanks again to Matt, at Sacred Heart Radio, for spotting it.

I found this prayer here.  Thought it was quite beautiful.

The Alexian Brothers’ Prayer to Christ the Healer
In the comfort of your love,
I pour out to you, my Saviour,
The memories that haunt me,
The anxieties that perplex me,
The fears that stifle me,
The sickness that prevails upon me,
And the frustration of all the pain
that weaves about within me.
Lord, help me to see your peace in my turmoil,
your compassion in my sorrow,
your forgiveness in my weakness,
And, your love in my need.
Touch me, O Lord, with your healing power and strength.

(And if you’re asking ”Who are the Alexian Brothers?” (I did), you can go here.)

Wow, today the First Things blog points out a fascinating item from writer Eric Metaxis.  It’s the story of how Buzz Aldrin, 40 years ago today, received Communion (the Presbyterian version, if you want to be picky about it) on the moon.  Both Aldrin’s story and Metaxis’ commentary are well worth a look.

In English class, you’ll remember, we called them loan words — words that have worked their way into the English from other languages. We got chauffeur and amateur from French, karaoke from Japanese, and graffiti, ballerina, and diva from Italian.

Anyway, I’m always interested when I notice loan words from English in Italian. (I’m sure English works its way into most languages in the world, probably more than any other language, but it’s Italian I’m a little familiar with.) For example, the Italians use the English word to talk about blue jeans and the weekend.

Anyway, I noticed a new one today (new to me). Here’s a sentence from Andrea Tornielli on the Pope’s trip to the hospital this weekend: “Dopo colazione, è stato portato in ospedale e qui sottoposto a un check-up completo…”

After breakfast, he was taken to the hospital and there underwent a complete … check-up!

George Weigel has another column up at NRO.  Say what you will about that last one (and I agreed with most of the guff he took about it), ya gotta admit he’s right on the mark in this one when he suggests that it is rather amusing to be reading “high-voltage rhetoric in defense of Caritas in Veritate from people who would rather have had a barbed-wire colonoscopy than see Joseph Ratzinger elected pope back in 2005.”  

Now there’s an image.

I also must nod energetically at this comment of his:

Finally, and of possible concern only to those fascinated by the most inside of Catholic inside baseball, it will be interesting to see the effect of the encyclical’s strictures against too-stringent laws protecting intellectual property rights on what some would regard as the excessive claim of the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Holy See’s publishing house, to a property right in virtually every word spoken by this pope. 

For example: Before my aforementioned little book Your Guide to Caritas in Veritate: Charity in Truth goes to press, someone (me or the publisher) will have to write to the Vatican and ask permission to quote the encyclical.  The Vatican will write back and say, Sure, if you pay us $X (and X will be several hundred dollars).  

We’ll have to pay money to the Vatican for the right to quote a papal encyclical!  It was not like this five years ago.  It has been for the past four.  See a problem with that?